Finding Pete: Rediscovering the Brother I Lost in Vietnam

by Jill Hunting

  Every time I think about Kennedy it makes me feel sick, as though it had been somebody in my own family. Makes me really hate racists. All our Vietnamese friends have stopped us on the street to say they were sorry to hear it, too. Doesn’t it just make you sick to think of it?

  FIVE

  “A Peaceful Sleep Forever”

  K

  im Nguyen stepped out of a taxi in front of the IVS house in Saigon and smoothed the long panels of her ao dai — the fitted tunic with slacks underneath worn by Vietnamese women of all ages. Kim was eighteen, with straight black hair cut short.

  Her father, who held a high position with the post office, had sent Kim to a good school. One day a notice went up on the bulletin board there. Someone was looking for a secretary who could speak English and take shorthand. Kim got the job and went to work for Don Luce. By November 1965, only thirty-four years old, he had been chief-of-party for five years.

  The IVS headquarters was located near Tan Son Nhut Airport on a livestock experiment station owned by the South Vietnamese Agriculture Ministry. It was a modest two-story concrete structure connected by a breezeway to an older, French-era residence. In the newer building were a small men’s dormitory and a large living room where the volunteers gathered occasionally for meetings or parties. The upper floor of the older building housed the few women on the team. Downstairs were a kitchen, a dining room, and two offices. Kim and Don shared the smaller office. A few administrative staffers shared the larger room with their Vietnamese typist and an interpreter.

  When Kim entered the building, not a person was in sight. She looked in the kitchen and saw several of the young Americans huddled and speaking in whispers. Their faces were grim and worried. Something is wrong, she thought.

  She walked into her office, looking for Don. He wasn’t there. She walked to the doorway of the other office and saw Mai, the typist, sitting alone. What is wrong?

  Mai said she didn’t know if it was true, but she had just heard that Pete Hunting had been killed.

  A few minutes later, Don found Kim and took her aside. “He looked very soft,” she remembers. The room was silent. His eyes were red.

  Don said he had bad news. Pete had been on his way somewhere and was killed in a mine explosion.

  “Oh, my God! Did I hear it right?” she asked. She was numb. She could not believe it.

  Kim had not known Pete well, but she had seen him on the occasions when he stopped by the IVS house. She had thought him very good looking. He had always wished her a good morning. “A lot of the other guys would chitchat, but Pete — he had things to do,” she said. “He would just stop in and then go right back to work.” He was purposeful.

  For the rest of the day, Kim struggled to do anything. Don asked her to type a list of Pete’s belongings. It was just one page, but she kept making mistakes and it took three hours. Don told her the list was for Pete’s mother. There was also a short letter, which began, “It is with deep regret . . .”

  For a long time the atmosphere of the IVS house was one of sorrow. People who once had been loud in the office were now quiet.

  Gene Stoltzfus, a Mennonite pacifist from Minnesota, was Pete’s closest friend on the IVS team. Just two days before Pete was killed, he had taken Gene to the Saigon airport for a flight to Nha Trang, where he lived.

  After learning of Pete’s death, Gene returned to Saigon and helped arrange a memorial service at the International Protestant Church.

  Among many who attended the service on November 16 was Charles Mann, director of the U.S. Operations Mission in Vietnam. A few days before, his deputy had sent my father a telegram assuring him that Pete had been “in front lines of war to help win the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people.”1

  At the service, some of Pete’s Vietnamese friends sang his favorite folk songs, which they had taught him. Don Luce spoke for the team:

  Pete Hunting was a friend to all those with whom he associated. He will be greatly missed.

  He came to help and felt deeply the problems of the Vietnamese people. He worked because there was work to do. There are wells he dug in the villages of the Cham people near Phan Rang; ideas were changed and new thoughts introduced by his long hours in and out of the classroom with the youth of this country; clothes and food were distributed through his efforts to refugees from the Viet Cong in Cai Be. The simple things like supporting a boy through high school with his own living allowance, carrying a farmer to market, selling a Cham woman’s blankets were part of Pete’s daily life.

  He came with a much higher motivation than materialism. Pete came to Vietnam and returned for a second tour because he wanted to get close to people . . . to help make life easier for others. Most important of all is the greater understanding Pete gave us all of the things he felt important . . . brotherhood, service to man, and the need for peace.

  The contributions Pete Hunting made, his courage, his kindness, and his great sacrifice will remain. He was a man of his word who will be remembered by people of many walks of life — the Cham farmer, the Vietnamese school teacher, the NVS [National Voluntary Service] youth leader, the USOM representative, and his fellow IVSers.

  At the time of his death, Pete carried this verse in his wallet. I think he would like all of us to share it:

  By the way of Bethlehem lead us, O Lord, to newness of life;

  By the innocence of the Christ child renew our simple trust;

  By the tenderness of Mary deliver us from cruelty and hardness of hearts;

  By the patience of Joseph save us from all rash judgment and ill-tempered action;

  By the shepherds’ watch open our eyes to the signs of thy coming;

  By the wise men’s journey keep our searching spirits from fainting;

  By the music of the heavenly choir put to shame the clamor of the earth;

  By the shining of a star guide our feet into the way of peace. Amen.2

  The loss of Pete Hunting has affected us all deeply. He was a personal friend as well as an inspiration to all. I pray that we will be given the strength to continue as Pete would want us to.

  Many of Pete’s teammates wrote to my parents. Bob McNeff said he would miss Pete “beyond words.” He recalled Pete’s dedication, and the trust and respect he had earned among Vietnamese colleagues and friends. After the service, Bob collected the ribbons from a dozen wreaths and mailed them to my parents.

  Jim Linn was one of the volunteers on Pete’s team after he was promoted to a supervisory role. For three months Jim and Pete had lived next to each other. Jim was “so thoroughly upset” that he felt compelled to write to my parents. “It was solely through my observations of Pete in his daily living that I was convinced that the IVS team leader position could be meaningful and productive,” he said. “I am sure that he cannot be replaced — no one could work as effectively and honestly as he did.” Jim was later promoted to team leader himself.

  He wrote again a few weeks later. He had recently seen a Cham couple who knew Pete up in Ninh Thuan. Pete had helped them, and others in their hamlet, to sell the weavings that were their sole source of income. The couple had asked Jim to send a special blanket to Pete’s parents “to convey both their sympathy and their pride in having had such a good and valued friend.” He enclosed a letter from the husband and translated it: “He will always be in my heart as a friend whom I shall forever be fond of. I will never be able to forget him. . . . I send urgent prayers to the heavens above, asking that you be protected and that you will receive peace and good health for you and your family.”

  Because my parents did not share the letters they received with my sisters and me, I was not aware of the number of people who felt as if they, too, had lost a brother. One Vietnamese man said, “I can only say that we felt like we had lost someone very dear, a brother. He was always friendly, helpful, and optimistic. As all Asian peoples, we believe in fate. I must say that fate is not always fair, but we cannot do anything about it. Pete Hunting has gone but his name will
remain forever in his friends’ mind and heart.”

  A high school principal wrote that his staff and students were deeply grieved:

  We can hardly believe such a tragic event. Pete has gone forever! You lost a beloved son; the United States lost a dignified citizen; we, the teaching staff, lost a colleague of good will; our students lost a kind and devoted teacher; Vietnamese people lost a clement benefactor.

  How can you forget such a good-natured young man who had more than once set foot on this poor land on a sacred humanitarian mission? Pete’s days were already numbered, but still his image remains in those he lived with, and with the places where he passed. Pete died but his work is still being carried forward. We can’t help being moved when thinking of a youth who had left his prosperous country with magnificent cities and skyscrapers to engage himself in this remote strip of land and mingle himself with the Vietnamese peasants. Many a time, Pete was seen among the Cham, helping them dig wells, build houses and do various agricultural jobs. And it is in the scope of education that we know Pete best. What Pete did at our school remains as cherished memories for us.

  We would like to end the letter with our most sincere condolences to your family and relatives. God bless Pete and consolate him in the other world.

  An elementary school teacher told my parents about the mobile science laboratory Pete had developed a few months earlier. “We made acquaintance with a young and gentle American,” he wrote. It was the first time that the school had worked so closely with an American. Pete had spared neither time nor money, paying for much of the lab equipment himself. The teachers had noticed his disappointment when other Americans did not share his enthusiasm for the new science lessons.

  Before moving to the delta, Pete had spent an evening with the teacher and two new IVSers. They had shared “a friendly Vietnamese dinner in the full moonlight at a popular restaurant in the outskirts of Saigon,” the teacher wrote. Pete had taught the new recruits some Vietnamese customs. He had promised the teacher they would meet again whenever he was in Saigon. After he moved south, they had missed him. The letter continued:

  Because he dared to accept his risky duty in touring the countryside, because he was well aware that the enemy was waiting for him at his every step to help us develop the education of the Vietnamese youth, foreseeing his lethal fate as a constant companion and an ultimate reward, he really possessed his life and made it full of sense. Peter’s life was too short! But his souvenir will always be alive in our hearts.

  My parents also heard from American government employees in Vietnam, such as Paul London, an assistant provincial representative. London lived in Ba Xuyen Province, where Pete had driven past the verdant rice fields on his last day, and wrote:

  Being in Vietnam is one of the best opportunities to see Americans as they should be . . . but of all the fine people I’ve met here it is honest to say that Peter was the one I liked best to think of as representative of America. Certainly he was the most sensitive and the one I expected to profit most from this experience. He took trouble to speak Vietnamese well and it was appreciated. . . . I would have been very pleased if I could have influenced him to join the State Department.

  Frank G. Wisner II was a second secretary at the U.S. Embassy. At the time of Pete’s death, he was in Mississippi for the funeral of his father, a high-ranking CIA official. Upon his return to Saigon, he learned the “heartbreaking news” and wrote to my parents, “I was proud to be one of Peter’s greatest admirers. His exuberance, imagination, consideration, effectiveness, and bravery made a deep impression on me during the months we knew each other . . . I shall miss Peter very much.”

  In the following months, Wisner would come to my parents’ aid by expediting the return of Pete’s personal effects. As a federal employee, my father was no stranger to bureaucracy, but he grew frustrated when the promised shipment failed to arrive, despite one assurance after another. Wisner had offered to help in any way he could, and my father eventually turned to him for assistance. Wisner got things moving.3

  President Lyndon Johnson was informed of Pete’s death by his national security adviser, McGeorge Bundy, on December 18, 1965. Bundy’s memo included a report from USOM Director Charles Mann stating that Pete had been ambushed and murdered. “Consideration might be given to award a posthumous decoration,” he suggested.

  The following day, in Oklahoma City, the Sunday Oklahoman reported that a flood of sympathy letters and telegrams had been pouring into our home from strangers and friends around the world.4 Meanwhile, in Saigon, Don Luce had been collecting condolence letters and telegrams received at the IVS house. He sent them to my parents in a dark-green lacquered box with golden bamboo painted on the cover, a beautiful example of Vietnamese craftsmanship.

  Pete had worked closely with a volunteer in a youth program who wrote:

  Nobody could anticipate such a cruel thing would happen to such a nice man. This is not the first time an American died on this thankless land for the service of Vietnamese people, but it is just unbearable to us. . . .

  Would you, his eldest brother in IVS team, please be kind enough to let us share this great common loss and sorrow.

  Finally, let us hope this is the only case that IVS has to undergo, a very special case, happened through mistakes, as Pete often joked that there was nothing special in Phan Rang but himself.

  A Buddhist student leader wrote that Pete’s contribution to youth activities and social improvement had been “so great that it is still alive in our mind forever. On behalf of the Buddhist students, I send to you our mourning, and I want to let you know that we all share your suffering and loss.”

  Another student leader struggled to believe what had happened to his friend:

  The news of Peter’s death reached me one gloomy afternoon two days ago. Could I believe in my ears? How could such a bitter thing happen? As a close friend of Peter, I was severely shocked, but what can compare with the sorrow you have to bear.

  . . . I still remember the day [we] transported water pumps to Suoi-Gieng hamlet to help peasants save hundreds of acres of rice fields from a certain death due to the drought. The rice fields were saved but who could imagine death would come to Peter a few months after.

  Braving danger, ignoring promising careers in the states, he came to Vietnam to help us reconstruct our wretched countryside and soothe wounds of a divided country. Now our energetic Peter gone. His life was sacrificed for his humanitarian ideal, what could be more noble?

  We bow our heads before your son’s death. Your mourning is also ours, as we consider Peter our brother sharing our ideals of serving the underprivileged and deprived. This letter is to let you know that although thousands of miles are between us, our hearts are with you in your bereavement in this moment.

  The executive committee of a Vietnamese volunteer organization founded on the IVS model addressed the Vietcong’s attack and Pete’s legacy:

  The news that your son was assassinated while carrying out his altruistic mission down in the Mekong delta was just like a stab in our own hearts. It was something that we could hardly believe. How could that happen to our nice friend who had come from a distant and prosperous country with just an aim to help us fight misery and ignorance.

  If Peter’s death was due to a mistake on the part of our enemy, it was a regrettable mistake causing a great loss to all country people of Vietnam. If it was the result of a deliberate act, it was then a blunt murder worth to be condemned by all.

  Peter passed away from this world but his works realizing love of humanity will remain everlasting in rural Vietnam. As for us, we have engraved in our memory his radiant look and open smile while expressing his determination to help poor Vietnamese peasants. . . .

  Don also forwarded the letters sent by Pete’s former teammates who had completed their terms of service and left Vietnam. Some expressed, along with shock, a concern that the killing of a team member would damage IVS.5 The organization’s record had been “blemished, but hopef
ully not permanently scarred,” Mike Chilton and Kirk Dimmit wrote. “We can take comfort and pride in knowing that Pete will be kindly remembered by his many Vietnamese friends and counterparts through the fine examples he set as an IVS worker.”

  From Hong Kong, Phyllis and David Colyer wrote to say they hoped the incident would not threaten IVS’s future and believed Pete would not want it to:

  It is our hope that Pete’s death will not sway IVS from carrying on the work Pete returned to Vietnam to do; work which we feel is perhaps even more urgently needed now than before.

  Not being present in Vietnam now and not knowing the particular facts and details involved in this tragedy, we cannot evaluate or presume to judge what IVSers there should do. But for ourselves, we would like to say that we stand in continued support of IVS Vietnam and hope that the volunteer work which has proved effective in the past and which still may be carried out in relative safety will be continued. We believe that had Pete narrowly missed or survived the ambush, he would have still continued his work in South Vietnam.

  Gloria Johnson had served on the IVS administrative staff in Saigon. She wondered if the account she had heard was true and, if it was, how IVS could carry on:

  I have just heard the news about Peter’s death on the radio. It has said that he was led into an ambush by two supposed friends — Vietnamese. . . . What a terrible thing, especially if this report about the friends is true. Peter’s parents must feel terrible; I surely hope they didn’t object to his being there in the first place. And the IVSers must be stunned — I know I am now, and would have been when in Viet-Nam, too.